Atec 605A's. Help

[Kilowatt915]

Greetings and Salutations,

New member here. I was referred here by someone from another forum.
Joining new forums are always tricky. You never know what the vibe is.
But since I'm looking for some help, I figured I'd give it a shot.

I came across some cabinets with peerless kit speakers. I'm looking to
remove those speakers and put in some Altec 605a's with the N-1600-C
crossovers. I'm thinking of referencing Model 861 Cabs.
The volume is 5.2 cubic feet. After some calcs, it looks like I might need
some good size ports. I want to do the circular ports but if a vented
rectangular port is better, so be it.

One problem I am concerned about is the cabs are made out of "pressed
wood". Do you guys think some good padding inside can help with the
weak material?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Looks like I can't post photos, being that I'm a new member. May I can post the photos after someone replies.

- - - Updated - - -

[Elitopus1]

You were able to post pretty quick. Maybe they have fixed the glitches since I have joined

I can comment on the "pressed wood" concern. If you mean particle board, that is a good, fairly acoustically dead material for building speaker cabs. Plywood usually takes more abuse if you move your speakers around alot (think PA speakers), but particle board is supposed to be better acoustically.

Altec used alot of plywood in their eariler cabs but then switched to particle board. Both my 817a cabs and 828 clone cabs are particle board. I have added a bit of extra cab bracing to stiffen up the 828 cabs. You could add some 1x1 or bigger pieces of wood inside your cabs to stiffen them up. It will eat a little bit of cuft but the cabs will be sturdier.

[Kilowatt915]

You were able to post pretty quick. Maybe they have fixed the glitches since I have joined

I can comment on the "pressed wood" concern. If you mean particle board, that is a good, fairly acoustically dead material for building speaker cabs. Plywood usually takes more abuse if you move your speakers around alot (think PA speakers), but particle board is supposed to be better acoustically.

Altec used alot of plywood in their eariler cabs but then switched to particle board. Both my 817a cabs and 828 clone cabs are particle board. I have added a bit of extra cab bracing to stiffen up the 828 cabs. You could add some 1x1 or bigger pieces of wood inside your cabs to stiffen them up. It will eat a little bit of cuft but the cabs will be sturdier.

Thanks for the insight. I think I'm gonna add the padding and see how it sounds. If it needs more bracing, I can easily do that without tearing the cabs up.
Thanks again for the good news.

[gdmoore28]

Welcome to the Altec User's Board, Kilo! The cabinets you have are really attractive, even if the one in the first picture has little human feet growing out of it!

You've come to the right place for Altec information, and the guys here are very helpful. They will be along shortly and will be able to advise you about how to best utilize your cabinets. IIRC, the 604/605s are happier in something considerably larger than your cabs, but they've been used in everything from stereo consoles to studio monitors, small cabs to large ones. You may not be able to achieve a very low frequency response. We'll see what the gurus say.

The "pressed wood" cabinet construction is fine and is, in fact, preferred by most builders today. I still prefer using plywood simply because I hate working with MDF (medium density fiberboard) and its attendant dust, weight, and hard treatment of blades and bits.

Once again, welcome to the board. Keep us updated on your progress.

GeeDeeEmm

[Kilowatt915]

Welcome to the Altec User's Board, Kilo! The cabinets you have are really attractive, even if the one in the first picture has little human feet growing out of it!

You've come to the right place for Altec information, and the guys here are very helpful. They will be along shortly and will be able to advise you about how to best utilize your cabinets. IIRC, the 604/605s are happier in something considerably larger than your cabs, but they've been used in everything from stereo consoles to studio monitors, small cabs to large ones. You may not be able to achieve a very low frequency response. We'll see what the gurus say.

The "pressed wood" cabinet construction is fine and is, in fact, preferred by most builders today. I still prefer using plywood simply because I hate working with MDF (medium density fiberboard) and its attendant dust, weight, and hard treatment of blades and bits.

Once again, welcome to the board. Keep us updated on your progress.

GeeDeeEmm

Thanks for the replay.
I had a feeling the cabs might be a little small.
I'm definitely concerned about the low freq response. I was hoping a certain port would help with that.
Calculations from old Altec instruction manuals say the port should be 0.47222 sq ft. Which is kind of large.
I really wanted some advise/suggestions from people who have the knowledge and experience on building
cabs with these speakers.
Thanks for the insight.

[bowtie427ss]

Agree, very attractive cabinets.

As i mentioned in the other thread, 605's will be more at home in that space than 604's.

There will be more than one school of thought on porting, i will defer to others for that.

[Kilowatt915]

welcome to the altec user's board, kilo! The cabinets you have are really attractive, even if the one in the first picture has little human feet growing out of it!

You've come to the right place for altec information, and the guys here are very helpful. They will be along shortly and will be able to advise you about how to best utilize your cabinets. Iirc, the 604/605s are happier in something considerably larger than your cabs, but they've been used in everything from stereo consoles to studio monitors, small cabs to large ones. You may not be able to achieve a very low frequency response. We'll see what the gurus say.

The "pressed wood" cabinet construction is fine and is, in fact, preferred by most builders today. I still prefer using plywood simply because i hate working with mdf (medium density fiberboard) and its attendant dust, weight, and hard treatment of blades and bits.

Once again, welcome to the board. Keep us updated on your progress.

Geedeeemm

i just saw my boys feet in the picture!! Hahahaha